Thiruvananthapuram: Wayanad’s record margin of 431,770 votes offers the southern lifeline to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, whose presence helped UDF garner an unprecedented tally of 19 out of the 20 seats in Lok Sabha elections in Kerala, scripting a counter narrative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s muscular nationalism at the centre.
But the big story is also the rout of the LDF in the only State it is in power. Its lone win, by the slenderest margin of 9, 213 votes in Alappuzha, signals the LDF’s worst setback since it was formed in 1980 as a programatic coalition. The UDF has overnight overturned the electoral profile of the State, gaining the majority in 123 out of the 140 Assembly segments, many of them CPM bastions for decades. The LDF now holds a mere 16 Assembly segments.
The results also knock the bottom out of the CPM theory that BJP’s growth would be at the expense of the UDF. Latest figures show that the UDF’s vote share has risen to 47.30 per cent as against 41.89 percent in 2014, when it won 12 seats and LDF 8.
The CPM’s vote share has plunged to around 33 percent, as against 40.12 percent in 2014. The Congress latest vote share is 37.30 percent.
BJP state chief P S Sreedharan Pillai claims the BJP vote share has gone up to 16 per cent from around 10.5 per cent in 2014.
The BJP drew a blank in the State just as it was summarily rejected south of the Vindhyas in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. For BJP, Sabarimala was reckoned to be its Ayodhya moment in Kerala, but its showing hasn’t been any better than in 2014, in terms of seats.
Unseen was the UDF wave, which CPM State boss Kodiyeri Balakrishnan confirmed on the day of counting on Thursday, recalling it is similar to the LDF tally of 18 seats in 2004 that left one each to the Muslim League and the NDA.
The UDF wave has been attributed to the deep-felt resentment across communities against the LDF’s approach to Sabarimala, the pro-Rahul minority consolidation, seeing him as the PM in waiting, and the growing voter apathy towards the CPM brand of political violence.
The UDF, which won 12 seats in 2014, wrested seven more this time from the LDF. Three sitting Congress MLAs won - Adoor Prakash (Cong-Konni) in Attingal, Hibi Eden (Cong) Ernakulam and K Muraleedharan (Cong-Vattiyoorkavu) in Vadakara. This calls for Assembly by-elections in six months to fill up vacancies.
The lone woman winner is the enfant terrible of Alathur (SC) and former Kunnamangalam block panchayat president Ramya Haridas, whose song-and-dance electioneering pulled off 1 lakh-plus margin.
Palakkad is the shocker where the underdog, V K Manikandan, defeated two-term MP, Mr M B Rajesh, by a margin of 11,637 votes. Attingal too sprang a surprise as the CPM veteran A Sampath lost to Adoor Prakash (Congress)
Loud and clear has been the message from Malabar to the CPM despite its protestations of innocence. The formidable line-up of Congress candidates Rajmohan Unnithan, K Sudhakaran and K Muraleedharan, who match the CPM punch for punch, mined votes, even penetrating the red fortresses such as Dharmadom (CM’s constituency) and Thrikkaripur.
Going by victory leads, after Rahul Gandhi, Muslim League general secretary P K Kunhalikutty has the highest margin-260,153.
Seven in 1-L plus club: N K Premachandran (RSP) Kollam 149,772, Hibi Eden (Cong) Ernakulam 169,153, Ramya Haridas (Cong) Alathur 158,968, Malappuram 260, 153 , Kottayam 106,259, Chalakudy 132,274, Idukki 171,053, Ponnani 193,273
Between 50,000-1 L: Shashi Tharoor -Thiruvananthapuram 999,89, K Muraleedharan-Vadakara 84,663, M K Raghavan-Kozhikode 85,225, K Sudhakaran-Kannur 94,559, Kodikunnil Suresh-Mavelikara 61,500, T N Pratapan-Thrissur 93,663.
Less than half lakh: Anto Antony-Pathanamthitta 44,613, V K Sreekandan Palakkad 11,637, Rajmohan Unnithan-Kasargod 40, 438, Adoor Prakash 38, 247
Gambit pays off: UDF’s gambit of pulling out its heavyweights from Assembly constituencies and packing them off to breach CPM citadels paid off. Now they will have to prepare for the next assault- a repeat performance in six Assembly seats where by-elections are due in six months-Vattiyoorkavu, Konni, Pala (death of K M Mani), Ernakulam, Aroor and Manjeswaram (death of P B Abdul Razak)
AICC general secretary Oommen Chandy wreaked sweet revenge on Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by ensuring the rout of the CPM during his stewardship. It’s no secret that there is no love lost between the two, given Mr Vijayan’s grouse against Mr Chandy for his alleged role in the Lavalin probe and the alacrity with which Mr Vijayan had sought to pin Mr Chandy down in the Solar sex scam.
It’s the hour of reckoning for the Chief Minister, who took a bold stand favouring the entry of young women in Sabarimala. He will have to account for the rout though he had merely implemented the party line the way he deemed fit. His counter to the Sabarimala agitation by the BJP and the UDF flopped; the Renaissance Wall was no match to the nama japam agitation.
In hindsight, Rahul did well to listen to the counsel of senior leaders such as A K Antony and Oommen Chandy to contest from the second safe seat of Wayanad and not yield to pressures mounted by P C Chacko through his mentor Sharad Pawar to withdraw, lest it should hurt the secular camp. It would have been suicidal going by the shock defeat on the home turf of Amethi.
